Neel Kashkari, Speech: Q&A at Lake Superior State University, Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan

“And so we’re seeing prices going up all across the US economy, but also all across economies all around the world. And so there’s some global things that are going on as well. And so it’s our job to try to bring that back into balance. So you’ve probably noticed that we’ve started raising interest rates over the last few months. We’ve raised interest rates twice. One was a 0.25% increase, which is a pretty small increase. And then last month, another 50, half a percentage point increase. Rates are still quite low based on historical measures. But interestingly, financial markets are forward looking. So we’ve indicated that we expect to raise rates more over the course of this year to at least get monetary policy back up to what we consider to be a neutral level, a level that’s not boosting the economy, but not holding the economy back.”